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Examining Trends in Bird Populations Over 10 Years of Data from a Local Banding Station in the BC Lower Mainland

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RES 500C - Vancouver Avian Research Centre (VARC) Examining trends in bird populations over 10 years of data from a local banding station in the BC Lower Mainland Authored by: Amy Liu, Carla Di Filippo, Erin Ryan April 2020 Table of contents ABSTRACT 2 RESEARCH REPORT 2 Introduction 2 Methods 4 Study area and data collection 4 Dataset management 5 Statistical Analysis 6 Results 8 Changes in local avian community through time 8 Changes in capture rates of individual species through time 11 Patterns associated with ecological guilds and their categories. 13 Discussion 16 Changes in local avian community through time 16 Changes in individual species through time 16 Trends associated with ecological guilds and their categories 19 Limitations and future research 20 Conclusion 21 SCIENCE COMMUNICATIONS 22 Education presentation 22 Social media 22 Facebook 22 Instagram 24 Twitter 25 GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS 26 2019 Annual report sample 26 Branded Powerpoint templates 27 Social media 27 Facebook 27 Instagram 28 Twitter 29 Target demographics 29 LIST OF APPENDICES 31 REFERENCES 32 1 ABSTRACT Bird monitoring programs provide the foundational data for programs that study and conserve birds. More than ever, with the uncertainty of climate change and increasing human impacts, research and monitoring to quantify species abundance are essential for our understanding of changing avian communities to guide successful conservation and management actions. This project examined 11 years (2009 - 2019) of bird banding data from a community banding station in Coquitlam, BC, Canada. The research approached three main questions: 1) Has the avian community changed over these years? 2) How have capture frequencies of individual species changed over time? 3) Can ecological factors explain the changes observed in the community and species of interest? Here, we have highlighted patterns in local abundance over time in the avian community, demonstrated case examples of decline and recovery in local species, and presented possible ecological factors that could be influencing these patterns. While migration seemed to have no correlation, avian diet showed that nectarivores were generally increasing, and significant patterns for breeding and wintering habitats are driven by small sample sizes of species with interesting trends. For the ecological categories of diet, wintering habitat, and breeding habitat, insectivores and woodland users comprise the majority of species captured at Colony Farm. These results could be due to human-influenced changes, such as changes in vegetation in the local area (affecting Brown-Headed Cowbirds) and the addition of bird feeders in the community (affecting nectarivores). Our analysis supports the importance of long-term monitoring, as ongoing avian mark-recapture data provides valuable insight into how local biodiversity and ecosystem health change over time. With an understanding of how local avian communities are changing, avian monitoring centers can adjust their goals to focus on these trends and species of concern or interest, in addition to public education, outreach, and community conservation engagement. 1. RESEARCH REPORT Introduction Over the past 50 years, wide-spread bird population declines are being reported across North America as a result of human impacts - not just in rare or endangered species, but also in species 1–3 previously considered common and widespread .​ These declines represent a net loss of nearly ​ 3 billion breeding individuals across a wide range of both habitats and species, which has serious implications for wildlife conservation and ecosystem integrity - loss of bird abundance results in 1 decreased pollination, seed dispersal, and disruptions to trophic systems .​ This staggering ​ decline in bird populations was only realized due to the long-term reliable records collected by individuals and dedicated institutions. 4–7 Monitoring bird populations is a useful tool to indicate ecosystem health and integrity .​ Birds ​ have a direct and simple cause-and-effect relationship with environmental change - they are sensitive to environmental perturbation, and play many different functional roles within 6,7 ecosystems including pollinators, seed dispersers, predators, and prey .​ Now more than ever, ​ 2 research and monitoring to quantify species abundance and assess how it changes over time are essential for our understanding of changing avian communities to guide successful conservation and management actions. For example, community monitoring efforts were responsible for detecting severe population declines in the western subspecies of Purple Martins. This data led 8 to their legal protection status, and resulted in considerable community recovery efforts .​ The ​ subspecies has since rebounded from 5 breeding pairs (1985) to more than 300 (2004) entirely 8 as a result of these efforts .​ ​ Indeed, long-term programs to monitor avian abundance provide foundational data for programs 9–11 that study and conserve birds .​ These programs are most successful with thoughtful design ​ 9 and coordination .​ Bird monitoring programs can broaden their impacts by coordinating efforts at ​ appropriate scales (e.g., for species at risk, working at the scale of their range), integrating datasets between programs (e.g., World Bird Research portal), appropriately managing data for long-term storage, encouraging citizen science data collection, and even the development of 9 continent-wide bird monitoring plans .​ ​ This project examined long-term banding and monitoring data from the Vancouver Avian Research Centre (VARC), a charitable organization dedicated to wild bird research, conservation and education. VARC conducts bird monitoring and banding, research, education, volunteer opportunities, and visitor programs at its main Colony Farm field station, in the city of Coquitlam, British Columbia (BC). VARC’s primary objective is to provide data and research support that will allow for the safeguarding of bird habitats. This safeguarding will ensure long-term survival of avian species by providing science-based strategies for bird and ecosystem conservation. VARC conducts extensive public outreach and education to raise awareness of environmental issues that relate to birds. In 2019, VARC provided volunteer opportunities and educational programs to more than 600 people, promoting conservation by giving people hands-on experience and demonstrations with birds and bird monitoring. Such outreach programs are effective for enhancing children’s knowledge of local biodiversity, and likely to result in 12 continuing conservation engagement .​ ​ In this project we examined a banding dataset spanning 10 years (2010-2019) to investigate the general patterns observed in species capture rates through time for the birds captured at VARC. We identified trends in this data using statistical models to outline local and regional bird behaviour patterns that may be due to natural (e.g., yearly fluctuations of prey or migration conditions) or anthropogenic factors (e.g., local habitat alterations, global climate change). We asked three broad questions about the avian community and individual bird species using this data: 1. Has the local avian community changed over the years of 2010-2019 at VARC? 2. How have capture frequencies of individual species changed over time? 3 3. Can ecological factors explain the changes observed in the community and species of interest? Here, we present general community patterns of avian species, as well as case studies of certain species that can be highlighted for local conservation interests and outreach. One component of VARC’s mandate is education - offering outreach opportunities to hundreds of people every year. To help communicate the value of the work that VARC does, and translate this research project to non-scientists, we have also included a few science communication elements in our results. With an understanding of how local avian communities are changing, avian monitoring centers like VARC can adjust their goals to focus on community and species trends and aid species of concern or interest, in addition to public education, outreach, and community conservation engagement. Methods Study area and data collection VARC operates a network of mist nets during spring migration, summer breeding, and fall migration seasons (Figure 1). On any given banding day, as many as 40 mist nets are in operation, depending on weather conditions and the availability of qualified volunteers. Banding operations begin at sunrise (or just before), and last 5 hours. During banding sessions, each captured bird is safely extracted from the mist net and processed. Captured birds were identified to species, sexed, aged, and fitted with a uniquely numbered Canadian Wildlife Service band, and, when possible, subjected to additional measurements and data collection (e.g., wing length, fat score, weight). Data collection also occurred on any captured birds that had been previously captured to facilitate long-term assessment of known individual birds. As part of the banding operation, during each banding session daily activity was recorded, including net hours, weather, personnel and bird observations of non-banded birds. 4 Figure 1. Aerial view of Vancouver Avian Research Center (VARC) banding station at Colony ​ Farm Regional Park. Dataset management We standardized the number of captures by capture effort (i.e., net hours) in a given year 13 (according to annual net hours in Table 1 of VARC’s annual report )​ to
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